Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [56]
Tony Maybury had transformed to such an extent that he looked terrifying, despite the ridiculous pale blue Y-fronts he was wearing. His entire body, including his face, was covered with quills identical to the ones Mike had seen on the man in the mortuary. Although he moved with the quick, predatory movements of a striking spider, Maybury was hunched over, two large, grotesquely shifting growths bulging on his back between his shoulder blades. His eyes were no longer human, but completely black, his eyelids peeling back from them, making his eyes look as if they were in danger of popping from their sockets.
Mike did not even have time to reach for his gun before the creature was upon him. It sprang at him, clamping lingers that had elongated to taloned claws around his throat. Hit by its full weight, Mike stumbled and fell backwards, banging his head on the floor. A white burst of light and pain exploded behind his eyes, and for a moment he felt as if he was sinking into a treacly black liquid, unable to do anything but wave his arms in feeble protest as the creature straddled his chest and rammed fingers like knife blades into his Adam’s apple.
At first the creature’s dead-fish smell was pungent in his nostrils, its slavering, hissing breath and the rustle of its quills echoing in his head. But as consciousness ebbed away, so Mike’s senses seemed to recede, leaving only blackness to fill the gaps.
Mike’s first conscious thought when he came round was that there was no longer a weight on his chest. His throat felt thick and dry, but when he tried to swallow, sharp, hot pain lanced up into his head and down his gullet, hitting his breastbone and fanning out across his chest like heartburn.
At least the pain brought him back to life. He sat bolt upright, and saw the creature writhing on the floor beside him, growling and holding its head. Standing above it was Charlotte, looking shell-shocked and clutching a hefty-looking standard lamp in both hands.
Mike had barely registered this before the creature twisted, rose in one fluid motion and smashed the lamp from her hands. It flew across the room, shattering against the corner of the dressing table. Before Charlotte had time to react, the thing was upon her, hands clamping around her neck, bearing her effortlessly to the ground.
Horrified, Mike leapt to his feet, reaching for the gun in its holster beneath his jacket. ‘Leave her alone or I’ll fire,’ he yelled - or tried to; pain sawed through his vocal cords like a rusty blade and his voice emerged as a croak. The creature that had been Tony Maybury either didn’t hear him or chose not to. Hissing like an enraged snake, it bore down savagely on Charlotte’s throat, as if he was trying to crush the fine bones in her neck.
Mike aimed at one of its outstretched legs and fired. As the bullet struck, bone and flesh parted in an eruption of evil-smelling blood so dark it was almost black. The creature threw back its head and howled in rage and agony, then its head whipped round with a look of pure hatred. Mike braced himself for the attack, but after glaring at him for a second or two - marking him - the creature turned back to Charlotte.
Charlotte had neither made a sound nor moved. She lay pinioned, arms and legs splayed and limp. Either she was dead, or unconscious, or simply too traumatised to fight back.
‘Let her go!’ Mike croaked again, but the creature ignored him.
Calmly Mike raised his gun for the second time and shot Tony Maybury through the back of the head.
Black lumpy stuff flew in all directions, spattering the bed, the carpet, the wall, the mirror of the dressing table. The corpse toppled forward on to Charlotte’s prone body with the floppy gracelessness of a tailor’s dummy.
Immediately Charlotte began to make breathy little screaming sounds, her arms and legs pistoning frantically as she tried to push her father